The Canadian mainstream media has lost all credibility.  This statement applies not only to the CBC, which has, (with the help of $1.4 billion in annual taxpayer funding), become a standing joke among Canadians because of its slavish adherence to leftist propaganda drawn from its own fantasy world.  The CBC’s fantasy bubble is not shared by most Canadians as is evident when you look at its viewership numbers.

National newspapers and other broadcasting outlets have also become equally unreliable sources of information, offering mere narrative and opinion in place of hard facts and investigative reporting.  A major factor contributing to this is that, since 2018, Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberal Government have provided taxpayer support to these media outlets in the amount of $595 million annually through a slush fund at Heritage Canada.  This has influenced the media’s coverage of Canadian events and politics.  In fact, the media doesn’t just “spin” a story, but now goes much further, by deliberately lying, distorting, or withholding information from the public in their analysis and news coverage.  Examples will be discussed below.

This erosion of trust in the mainstream media has also occurred because the media have, for some time, abandoned objectivity in their reporting, and, instead, substitute the journalists’ own opinions in their narratives. They do so, confidently believing that all reasonable persons will agree with them.  The journalists’ opinions, however, are driven in only one direction.  That is, most journalists (there are a few exceptions) consider, as “reasonable”, only progressive ideas and the Liberal Party narrative, and that “impartiality” means including an opinion only if it takes a progressive perspective.  As a result, in presenting their “reasonable” articles, journalists openly promote only one side of an issue, believing the opposite side and ideas are ill-informed, threatening, and racist.  The Associated Press Stylebook, which is a manual for mainstream media, expressly states that it is a false balance to give a platform to those deviating from the accepted, contemporary narrative.  The Stylebook suggests, straight up, that editorializing is acceptable in promoting left-wing ideological conformity on issues such as homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, gender identity, etc.  It is not surprising, therefore, that the media and their journalists are perceived by many Canadians as “useful idiots” for their one-sided reporting.  They have lost the respect of the public.

New Low for the Media

According to a report from Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at the University of Oxford, released on June 15, 2022, trust in Canadian media sank to its lowest point in seven years, dropping 13% since 2016.  Only 42% of Canadians said they trusted the media “most of the time”.  Only 29% of Canadians believe the media are free from political influence.

Further, a February 2022 study by Canadian marketing consultants, Edelman Canada, found that 61% of Canadians believe journalists and reporters purposely try to mislead the public.

Findings are No Surprise

It should come as no surprise to learn that public confidence in the media is in a tailspin.  Canadians have seen for themselves the overwhelming media bias and manipulation.  There are many examples of this behaviour.  Below are a few of them:

  • Residential Schools

On May 27, 2021, a press release was issued by an indigenous band located near a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.  According to this press release, 211 children, who had been in residence at the school, experienced abuse – (physical and sexual), malnourishment, and general neglect.  These “missing” children were reported to have been buried in a “mass grave” on the school grounds.  It was a shocking story that reverberated around the world.  These children, however, were never “missing”.  B.C. Archives has provided death certificates for the children, indicating they had died either of disease or by accident, and were buried on the reserves or in local cemeteries.  Ground penetrating radar found disturbances located in the school grounds.  In 1924, a septic tank with 200 linear feet of trenches with ground tiles was installed at the same depth as the supposed shallow graves, which would likely explain these disturbances.

The media have never released this information.  Rather, the media continue to put forward, as “fact”, the abuse of children who were buried in the cemeteries, to discredit the churches (especially the Roman Catholic Church), which operated these schools.  The latter narrative protects Trudeau from having to acknowledge that the residential schools were established, funded, and supervised by the federal Department of Indian Affairs. Media Coverage also ignores the fact that Trudeau has failed to comply with most of the 94 recommendations made by the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Report.

  • The Freedom Convoy

The Freedom Convoy, in February 2022, was an unprecedented event in Canada, indicating the public’s growing concern about the loss of civil rights caused by the vaccination mandates, and denial of freedom of expression, mobility rights, and freedom of assembly.  These latter rights were supposedly “fundamental freedoms” protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Prime Minister Trudeau described the Convoy as organized by a fringe group consisting of misogynists, white supremacists, and racists. (This was highly unlikely since the truckers included Sikhs and Indigenous individuals).

The mainstream media adopted Trudeau’s invalid description of the Convoy and its participants, and further stated that the peaceful demonstrators were violent, disruptive, and a danger to the public.  This was contrary to the facts.

  • Trudeau’s Drug Policies

The Trudeau government’s response to the alarming increase in addiction and drug overdose deaths has been, incredibly, to expand the availability of drugs.  Increased availability leads to increased consumption. As a result, drug overdose deaths since 2016 have risen to 31,000. Trudeau’s policies include increasing drug injection sites across the country to permit addicts to repeatedly inject their drugs, obtained from drug traffickers. This deepens their addiction.  Trudeau is now also planning to distribute free drugs, without a prescription, to addicts, for consumption without supervision, in their homes.  He has also decriminalized drugs in B.C. and is considering doing so elsewhere. His policies are leading nowhere but to certain death and suffering for addicts.  The Canadian media, however, portray these policies as helpful, caring, and necessary for the care of addicts, covering up Trudeau’s reckless failure to control addiction in Canada.

The Media Cover-up

The Canadian mainstream media have failed to provide objective, balanced reporting on critical issues, and, instead, are shielding Trudeau’s many failures from public scrutiny.  Canadians are right to disbelieve the information published or viewed, since this distorted information is an insult.  Canadians are also right to expect an end to taxpayer subsidies of media.  If media are to survive, then like any other product in the marketplace, they must compete and produce content that people want to consume.  To paraphrase Field of Dreams, “If you build a better media product, they will consume it.”